What God Has Joined Together

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Mark, chapter 10, verses 2 through 16. Some Pharisees came and tested

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Jesus by asking, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? What did

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Moses command you? He replied. They said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.

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It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law, Jesus replied. But at the beginning of creation,

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God made them male and female. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

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So they're no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.

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When they were in the house again, His disciples asked Him about this. He answered, Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.

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And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.

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People were bringing little children to Jesus to have Him touch them. But the disciples rebuked them.

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When Jesus saw this, He was indignant. He said to them, Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them.

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For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth. Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God, like a little child, will never enter it.

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And He took the children in His arms and put His hands on them. And He blessed them.

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In the name of Jesus. Amen. Alright, our text this morning is kind of chopped into three pieces.

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We'll kind of address it in three different parts. We're going to talk about this testing of Jesus in order to kind of trip

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Him up. And His answer regarding the creation. We'll take a look at what He says then about divorce.

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And then lastly, we'll take a look at children real quick. So, that's what we're going to be doing in our text today. I recommend you have your

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Bibles with you. You will need them for our sermon today. Mark chapter 10 verse 2.

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Pharisees came up in order to test Him. Here's what's going on. Even in Jesus' day, you have two different camps kind of split on the divorce issue.

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You have some who are really strict. Under no circumstances. And then on the other side, you have those who say,

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Well, you know, it's okay. And so, you have the lax group and you have the strict group.

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And so, the idea behind the testing is something along the lines of this. We're going to ask

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Jesus one of those questions. It'll be a catch -22. And no matter how He answers it, He's going to end up upsetting like half the people.

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Finally, we can get this Jesus guy to look stupid in the polls, right? Because His popularity continues to hover way above what they wanted.

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So, they're trying to figure out how to get Him to drop down in popularity. It would be something along the lines of today.

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Although, the analogy is kind of a mess. But if a popular pastor or preacher were on one of those major talk shows on one of the news channels.

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And the interviewer asked them, What does God say about homosexual marriage?

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Well, there's the gotcha question. Because as soon as He says what God's word says, half the people in the audience are going to tune this guy out.

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So, this is the idea. So, Jesus, He answers their, here's their question. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife, is the question.

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This is a pretty straightforward question, by the way. So, He answers them with a question. What did Moses command you?

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Well, they said, Well, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.

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A little historical note here. It was the men who wrote the certificates of divorce, not the women. And so,

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Jesus then gives them a little bit of information. They've correctly cited what Moses says in the

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Torah. So, Jesus is going to give them information they don't have. And let's talk about why that commandment's there.

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Do you think for a second that the thing in the Torah, in the

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Old Covenant, that allows for a man to write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away, was what

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God intended from the beginning? Do you think that's really part of God's holy law? And the answer's no.

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Jesus said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away because of your hardness of heart.

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That's why He wrote this commandment. And then Jesus gives us this information. But from the beginning of creation,

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God made them male and female. So, Jesus goes all the way back to before the fall.

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Before the fall and cites for us Genesis chapter 2.

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Talking about what was really going on there. He says this, but from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.

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Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother. And, here's kind of an interesting word.

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Proskalaosthai. I think I mispronounced that. Hold fast.

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Be united. Be joined to. Interesting thing about this word here is it's passive.

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You're thinking, what does that mean? Well, here's the idea. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be made to or caused to be joined or united with his wife.

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In other words, the man ain't doing the joining. He's being joined.

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You think, what is going on there? Well, we continue. So, a man will be joined to, united to his wife.

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And the two shall become one flesh. So that they are no longer two, but they are one. And verse 9 gives us the reason why that's passive.

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What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

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God is the one who's doing the joining. Not me, not you, not the husband, not the wife.

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God's doing the joining. God is the one causing the two to become one flesh.

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In other words, we've got to do a little bit of examining here. Just by what Jesus has told us, we know a lot now about what

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God has intended all along regarding marriage. Marriage, number one, is the union of a male and a female.

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And God takes that couple and joins them together.

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That's what we call holy matrimony. And the reason it's holy is because God's doing the joining.

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Now, what the state of Minnesota, or the United States, says is that two dudes can get together.

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And the state will issue them a marriage certificate. Saying that according to the state of Minnesota, backed up with the

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Supreme Court of the United States of America, these two dudes are married. That's what we call unholy matrimony.

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And God does not join the two of them together. God unites.

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He joins a male and a female in holy matrimony. This is not their doing, it's

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His. And if you know your Greek grammar, there's no way around it. Now keep that in mind.

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Now, I want to point something out here. And we're going to go back into our Old Testament text.

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And I'm going to read for you from my translation of Genesis chapter 2. You can follow along.

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We're going to be in Genesis chapter 2, starting in verse 4. I want you to see how

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God set everything up. It's absolutely beautiful. And this is before the fall.

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Genesis 2, verse 4. These are the accounts of the heaven and the earth and their creation in the day the

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Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Verse 5. Before there was a bush of the field on the earth and before there was grass of the field that sprang up, before the

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Lord God, no rain had caused to fall on the earth and no man to work the ground.

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And a mist was going up from the earth and was watering all the face of the ground. And the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed in his nose breath of life, and the man became a living soul.

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Note here. Everything else that God had created up to this point was created by Him speaking it into existence.

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He said, let there be light, and there was light. He said, let there be a sun, moon, stars, and there were.

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He said, let there be beasts of the field, grass in the field. Let there be seed -bearing plants and fruit -bearing trees.

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Let there be little creepy crawly things on the ground. And you know what happened when God said that there should be those things?

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They came into existence. But man was not created this way. God did something very special with our creation.

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Rather than speak us into existence, He took the dust and the clay and the mud and He formed a man.

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And then He breathed into his nose the breath of life. And he became a life, a living soul.

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Very important stuff. Absolutely beautiful. We have a unique creation.

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And then it says this. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and put there the man that He had formed.

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And the Lord God caused to grow from the ground every tree desirous in appearance and good for food.

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And the tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden.

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And there it divided and became four headwaters. A little side note here. The church fathers loved the fact that we have four rivers here at the beginning of creation.

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And you know what they see the parallel to in the New Testament? They see that the four headwaters of the gospel,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Fascinating how they connect that. But here's what it says.

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The name of the first is Pishon. It flowed around all the land of Havilah in which there is gold. The gold of that land is good.

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And there's Bedellium, an onyx stone. And the name of the second river is the Gihon. It flowed all around the land of Cush.

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And the name of the third is Tzedekal, which is translated Tigris.

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And it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Farat. And the

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Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.

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See, even before the fall, there was work to do. But it was not toilsome.

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We were made for such a thing as this. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,

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From all the trees of the garden you may surely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat from it, because on the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.

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And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone.

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I will make for him a helper as his...

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And this is an interesting Hebrew phrase. As his corresponding counterpart.

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You can almost think mirror opposite. Think Lego pieces, if you would.

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How they connect together. That's the idea. I will make for him a helper as his opposite, as his counterpart, or as corresponding creation.

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Which, by the way, rules out same -sex marriage. Just do the

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Lego work. Do the pieces fit together? The answer is no, they don't.

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God didn't make those pieces to fit together. So the Lord God formed from the ground every beast of the field, every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

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And all that the man called living creatures, it was its name. Notice, part of his task, part of his office, is the namer of the animals.

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God creates all of these things, and we get their descriptions, but then God causes them all to come before Adam, and he calls out their name.

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That's a zebra. That's a giraffe. I don't know what that is. Alright, duck -billed platypus.

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What were you thinking, God? Alright, alright. It's a strange one indeed, but he named them all.

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But the last one he names, watch this, it's in our text. So the man called the names to all the livestock, all the birds of the heavens, all the beasts of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper as his, there it is again, counterpart, his opposite, something corresponding to him.

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So the Lord God caused to fall a deep sleep upon the man. And as he slept, he took one from his ribs, closed it with flesh in its stead, and then the

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Lord God, the Hebrew here is brilliant, built. It says built. The Lord God built from the rib that was taken from the man a woman and brought her to the man.

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You can almost think that God here is playing matchmaker. All along he's been planning a wedding, getting ready for it, and now he's going to finally meet his perfect counterpart, his opposite, his bride.

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And here's what Adam says. You ever see those television programs where they do something kind for somebody, like they send them on vacation while they're gone, they completely renovate their house, and they come back and they go,

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Right? This is the reveal portion of that reality TV show, right?

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So here's the reveal. The Lord God brings Eve, and he's, This at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.

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And watch this. He names her. He names her.

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This one shall be called Isha. That's what woman is in Hebrew.

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Because from man this was taken. The Hebrew word for man is

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Ish. Hebrew word for woman is Isha. There's a professor at the

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Fort Wayne Seminary who says, The difference then between them is Ah.

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I think he has a good point, right? And it's beautiful. It's absolutely glorious.

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And then here's the Hebrew. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be clung to, united to, with his woman.

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That's what it says. His woman. And they will become one flesh. And they were both naked.

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The man and his woman. And they were not ashamed. Absolutely not ashamed.

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Can you imagine a relationship with your spouse where there was nothing to hide?

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No secrets. Everything's just there. What a wonderful relationship.

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What a beautiful thing God has created. And all of this is before the fall.

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We all know what happens in chapter 3, do we not? Chapter 3 is the fall of man.

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The temptation of the serpent. And the plunging of us, all of us, into a curse.

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Now, ironically, ironically, marriage itself points us to Jesus.

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Marriage, as we know it, is type and shadow. And the reality is the thing that we consider a mystery right now.

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And that is that Jesus has a bride. And that bride is his church.

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And I want you to think of it this way. Remember, it says this about the creation of Eve. That the

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Lord God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. And then took from his side one of his ribs.

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How is the church, the bride of Christ, created? Well, the

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Lord God caused Jesus to fall into a deep sleep. The sleep of death.

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And there he was on the cross. And the Roman soldier took the lance and pierced his side.

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And out came water and blood. And it is through the water and the blood that we, the bride of Christ, was formed.

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Was created. Is being built. And see, that's the great and profound mystery.

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And so marriage points us to that. In fact, Paul picks up on this theme in the book of Ephesians chapter 5.

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It says this in verses 25 through 27. The commandment as to how

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Christian husbands are to treat their wives. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.

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And gave himself up for her. That he might sanctify her. Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

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So that he might present the church to himself in splendor. Without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

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That she might be holy and without blemish. What a great husband the church has.

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Completely selfless. In fact, that's what we sung about in our sermon hymn.

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Did you notice how many times the hymn said, For us baptized. For us he bore.

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For us he daily works. He wrought. For us the temptation sharp he knew.

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For us. For us. For us. Literally the best husband on earth.

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With literally the most crazy bride ever. Right? Yeah. And all of this points to Jesus.

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And points to him. And so, let us then understand what marriage truly is.

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The church has become lax on these things. And the laxity that we've seen in recent days didn't begin yesterday.

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It began many, many, many years ago. When the church itself began winking and nodding at divorce.

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And yet, Jesus says this. This is part two of our sermon. The disciples asked

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Jesus about this matter. And he said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.

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How many marriages have we seen blown apart in our days? Scripture gives us two, and I mean this, two valid reasons for divorce.

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Your spouse has cheated on you. Or your unbelieving spouse has abandoned you. That's found in the book of 1

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Corinthians chapter 7, by the way. Nowhere in scripture are we told, well, she doesn't make me happy anymore.

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So I'm going to send her away. How many divorces have ended for stupid, unbiblical, selfish reasons?

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And you know what the church has done? Oh, I understand. God would never want you to be in a loveless marriage.

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God would never want you to experience this, that, or the other. He wants you to be happy. So by all means, leave him, leave her.

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Go find somebody else who will make you feel happy. All of that happened long ago.

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And it's been going on for decades. The sexual revolution just kind of ramped that and took it to another level.

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And now we live in the days of no -fault divorce. No fault.

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Well, if the state doesn't see any fault in it, do I need to seek God's forgiveness? Yeah, you do.

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You do. Because remember Jesus' solemn words. What God has joined together, let not man separate.

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It is absolutely wicked, sinful, evil, selfish, satanic to take what

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God has joined together and tear it apart over something as trite as, well,

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I'm no longer happy. She just doesn't do it for me. Get over yourself.

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The problem is you. As Christians, we husbands are to love our brides the way

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Christ has loved the church. And it's sinful to do otherwise.

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And it's sinful to condone and give credence to people who are contradicting what

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God has joined together. We've all seen the people from that crazy church, you know, that Baptist church,

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Westboro Baptist, God hates this, God hates that. Did you know there is a passage in the

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Old Testament, look it up, that says God hates divorce. Hates it.

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And yet we as Christians have become very lax on this. And you know one of the arguments that was used against Christians who were standing against same -sex marriage?

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50 % of you Christians are getting divorced. You obviously don't think that marriage is really all that sacred, do you?

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Based on those stats, clearly we don't. Because the stats between the world and Christians when it comes to divorce rates?

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Identical. No statistical difference. Do we really believe that God has joined us together?

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Important thing to think about. Now for the gospel. We have identified what it is the institution of marriage is as God has created it.

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We've seen how it's connected to Christ. And yet we also know that each and every one of us are guilty of all kinds of terrible sins.

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Even sins against our spouse. And sins against Christ that relate to our marriage.

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So let me end this way. Verse 13, chapter 10. They were bringing children.

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Greek word here is paideion. A paideion is an infant to about the age of 6 1⁄2 or 7.

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These are small children. Tiny little ones. These are the smallest of the small.

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Once you hit about 7 or 8, you're no longer a paideion. You're something else. Infants to about 6 1⁄2 or 7.

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So they were bringing children to him that they might touch them. And the disciples rebuked them.

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These poor disciples. The past few weeks they haven't been able to get anything right. I mean they couldn't cast out the demon.

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These guys are just messing up all over the place. And here they screwed up again. So here we've got somebody with their baby coming to Jesus.

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Because they want Jesus to bless their baby. And they say, that kid can't make a decision for Jesus.

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Bring him back when he's older. Right? And Jesus is all, no, no, no. Okay. He was indignant, it says.

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He's very upset. And he said, let the little children come to me. Don't hinder them.

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For to such belongs the kingdom of God. And you go, what?

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The kingdom of God belongs to infants? Really? The answer is yes.

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Because you know what? Infants are incapable of doing any good works for themselves.

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And I do not believe that filling a diaper is a good work. I just want to be on the record with that.

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Okay. That is not a good work. It is awful. So, I used to have a technique for dealing with that.

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But that's for another time. Maybe my therapist. They can only be given to.

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And oh yes, infants trust. They trust. They know the voice of their mom.

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They can recognize the voice of their dad. And they trust. And they can be given to.

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And so understand this. Infant faith according to Jesus is the gold standard of the kingdom of God.

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Not philosophy. Not super highfalutin technical nuanced theology.

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Although that's a good thing if it's done biblically. The gold standard in the kingdom of God is infant faith.

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Plain and simple. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God, like a child shall not enter it.

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How do the children here at Kongsvinger enter the kingdom of God? Right there.

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What good work do they do when they enter the kingdom of God? Not one.

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But what do they receive there? The washing of water and the word.

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Remember from the pierced side of Christ flows water and blood. And what you don't see in the baptismal font, because all we see is the water, is that mixed in there is the blood of Christ.

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And there Christ created new children in the kingdom of God.

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Washed away their sins. Buried them with him in his death, in his resurrection.

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Circumcised their hearts. All of these amazing promises with that. And all the infant did was receive.

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And in that they also received the ability to believe, to trust in Jesus all given as a gift.

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It's not based upon your mental ability. It's not based upon how old you are. It's based upon God giving it to you.

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Now I may have told the story, and if it's a repeat, I apologize. But I think it's poignant enough to at least bring back.

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The greatest theologian I've ever met, and I mean this sincerely, is a man with Down syndrome.

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I don't even know his name. But he had childlike faith. Let me explain.

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Years ago, I was teaching at a Baptist church, and I was attending the night services at a

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Lutheran church in Capistrano Beach, California. The evening service only had, well, less people here, less than we have here on a

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Sunday. Evening service was not very well attended. But the pastor of the congregation there had taken it upon himself to become the pastor of the residence of a home dedicated to adult people who had

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Down syndrome. They need assistance. So it's assisted living facility all for people with Down syndrome.

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And he went and ministered to them, and he became their pastor. And so once a month, he would bring the whole home to a church service.

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Oftentimes, it was in the morning, but this particular evening, it was to the night service. So we had two pews full of people who had

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Down syndrome. Beautiful, beautiful kids. They were all in their early 20s, something like that.

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And it comes time for communion. And in the evening service, we would all gather around.

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And so people come up, and we gather around all the way around the altar. And then

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Pastor Hodl would come by with a body and the blood. And that night, because we had guests, we were too deep.

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And standing right in front of me was one of these young men with Down syndrome. And Pastor Hodl comes up, and he says,

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Take, eat. This is the true body of Christ, broken for you.

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And this kid, with beautiful, childlike faith, says,

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For me? For me? Thank you. Thank you. And I lost it.

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Absolutely lost it. What a beautiful faith this man had.

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So simple. So childlike. So thankful for the gift that he was receiving.

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And he believed it to be what God's Word says it to be. And he received it with true, heartfelt thanks.

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And I was shamed. I wish my faith were that simple.

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I wish my faith were that childlike. For me?

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Thank you. Greatest theologian I've ever met. Greatest Christian I've ever met.

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Childlike faith is the gold standard in the Kingdom of God.

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Today, when you come here, I want you to believe the words that you hear.

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Broken and shed for you. And that's for you.

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For the forgiveness of your sins. No truer words can be spoken.

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Trust and believe that you are in Christ. That He has bled and died for you.

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Even for the sins that you have committed against God and against your spouse. Where you have not honored holy matrimony and kept it holy.

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Even those sins Christ has bled and died for. So trust that in the waters of your baptism, your sins were washed away.

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Trust when you hear the words today. Broken and shed for you. For the forgiveness of your sins.

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Christ, your groom. You, His bride.

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He is making you holy. And as Paul says, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor.

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Without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. So that she might be holy and without blemish.

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What a great husband we have in Jesus. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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